Worth
by PhaerynTao
Summary: Simon finds Jeanette in a heart breaking predicament, and does his best to nurse her wounds.


a/n: First Alvin and the Chipmunks fic for me. And let me be the first to say that I know that this could never happen. This story is really weird and unrealistic, but it was a fleeting idea and I decided to go with it. Just a oneshot, sorry to say.

Many themes reside in here, see if you can count them all. This thing really isn't my best, but it sure felt good to get it out there. Sorry if there are any errors, I proofread it as best I could.

Don't own the Chipmunks.

* * *

She oppressed herself trying to believe that these people had an ounce of soul in their bellies. She hid her bruises and her scars for the umpteenth time each session, though it was getting harder to do so. No one had noticed that the light in her eyes, however shy and fleeting it was before, had now gone out completely. 

Jeanette laid in the dirt patch behind her High School, her eyesight flickering on and off and the neuron attachments in her brain firing back and forth so hard she almost forgot where she was and how she got there. Remembering the scene visually was extremely difficult, but she could recall each sensation like it was still happening. She could recall the powerful grip on her thick dark brown hair, so strong that it lifted her delicate body off of the ground and a few drops of blood slowly began to drip down from her scalp and onto the back of her neck. There were five girls, all taller than her, all had thick accents that she just knew were fake and self induced, and all of them spat in her face as she brought a shaky hand into her shirt pocket and pulled out fifty dollars.

They always got her money. They always took it this way. Whenever they managed to see her in the halls when she was sloppy at hiding from them until she reached the exit doors, Jeanette tried to will herself to blank out and channel all of the feeling out her body. They stopped allowing her speak after their second attack, and whenever she parted her lips to say something along the lines of going to the authorities, the session would end with her face in the dirt and one of their heel-covered feet on her back.

After getting their money, they laughed as Jeanette tried to disengage, and they would have none of that. They picked her up by the scruff of her dark sweater and each took turns striking her across the face. Before she fell to the ground she felt a rippling pain that spread across her face, signaling that they had almost broken her nose. She fell to the ground, tears blood and mucus becoming plastered across her immaculate pretty face.

Her ears weren't working correctly anymore, but once again they laughed, pocketed her money, and took off in a flash.

They left the Chipette, broken and bleeding once again on the dirt patch behind the school.

It started at the beginning as small things, like them snickering whenever she read in class or tripping her as she walked down the school corridors.

It was unfair. So hideously unfair.

But she stopped pleading for them to stop a long time ago.

She was a human being put on this earth to be loved and cherished, correct?

Then why did her mind suddenly howl the opposite; that she was here simply for others' sick amusement.

'Gods Gift to the World' was what her name meant. Yeah, everyone loves a punching bag.

At home her sisters would barely notice a thing, and if they did Jeanette used her aloofness to veer them off course from discovering the truth. All they would see is a quiet Jeanette sitting on her well made bed doing her homework, silent as a tomb. No bruises, no pain. Just a quiet responsible little Jeanette. She always thought of herself as strong before then, strong in her classes and her ability to converse. But once she tried raising her fists against those who brought on the sessions, she became as vulnerable as dead game.

But Jeanette kept it a secret. And she was still strong in that pursuit.

She came to the conclusion that this was a far cry beyond bullying. To those girls, those thick accented girls with the hot pink tube tops and the crispy gelled hair, she was less than nothing, and should be treated as such.

_Where did you get all those bruises, Jeanette? _Brittney asked one day when she accidentally walked in Jeanette changing her shirt.

_I've been bumping into things for weeks now, don't know why. _Jeanette responded quietly, swiftly putting on her shirt and leaving the room in a hurry.

_Why're you crying, Jeanette? Did you have a bad dream? _Eleanor asked quietly as Jeanette awoke to her sitting next to her bed.

She remembered that her sister stroked her cheek so lovingly, and Jeanette wanted to smack it away. She wasn't deserving of such benevolent gestures anymore.

_You're hearing things, Eleanor. Go back to sleep. _And she rolled over and used the covers to wipe away the tears she made during her slumber.

Jeanette's nerves firing, her nose running, her skin enflamed and in pain, she was helpless as always after a session. But on most days she was at least able to move her legs. She tried to rise, but there was a sickening numbness in her legs and she was unable to. If she were clear in the head at that moment she would've made note of a dull pain that was pulsing in the middle of her spine. In her defenselessness, her ache, and grief that she would have to stay here until she was able to walk again, she did the one thing that she knew she was still able to do.

She sang.

Her voice was so soft even she could hardly hear it. She could see the words on a mental tablet, could remember practicing them in the studio with her sisters, but she knew that they were coming out all wrong, like a babbling psychopath.

Time passed out of knowledge, and the only way for her to even tell the time of day was to try and look at the position of the sun. In this season the sun was setting earlier, and a cold breeze began to blow against her cheek, drying the blood on her face.

But she didn't stop singing.

And she still couldn't walk.

How she wished her fists were steel, that her face was not soft but brutal and full of characterized creases. That her voice was biting like the sharpest knives or that her body was not so easy to tenderize. Her sad song did nothing but intensify the raging river of self loathing that had been running like a foot of melted snow within her.

Jeanette's ears perked up, hearing something through the pounding blood behind her drums.

"Oh my god…"

Was that her? Or was that whatever was coming? Or was she hearing things?

No, she couldn't let whoever they were see her like this.

Flash of blue.

Glasses equivalent to hers that lay askew and bent to her side.

_Glasses._

God no, she couldn't let _him _see her, see what had been done to her. Fear of humiliation brought her back from the violent ethereal void she had previously been drowning in; she wanted to cover her face from him

"Jeanette, can you hear me?"

Yes. _Yes. _And his voice was so good.

But she wouldn't say that.

Simon had stayed after school to type up his chemistry proposal that would probably get him into one of the best colleges in the country. The boy had just walked through the school's back exit, only to come across the familiar dirt patch with something not so familiar on its surface. He felt the kind of wrenching of all his organs tying themselves into the tightest knot possible as one would feel if they had discovered a dead body. As he slowly approached the body, he recognized the dark sweater, the short but somehow modest skirt, and the dark brown hair that was now covered in dust. He knelt next to the girl, looking at her battered face to make sure that this was who he believed it to be.

"Oh Jeanette…" He whispered mournfully, wondering who could have done such a vindictive thing to someone so undeserving.

Don't you dare look at me, she wanted to say, I don't want you to see me like this.

"Please, say_something._" Simon pleaded.

Instead of talking, Jeanette willed her bruised eyes to look at him and her ducts secreted fresh tears as she looked into the blurry face of the one she least wanted to ever discover her predicament.

Simon smiled sadly. "At least I know you're alive."

He looked at her paralyzed body.

"…Can you walk?" He asked.

When she shook her head, he reached his arms underneath her torso and her legs and lifted her after pocketing her ruined glasses.

"What're you doin'…" Jeanette's swollen lips mumbled.

"I'm taking you home." He replied simply.

"_No!_" She whispered frantically, her small delicate hands gripping his blue shirt surprisingly tight.

"Why on earth not?" He asked. The only other place he would even consider taking her was his house. He thought about calling the hospital, but something told him that she would have none of that either.

She coughed, and shook her head quickly.

Jeanette couldn't handle it right now. She couldn't handle Miss Miller and her sisters fussing over her. She couldn't handle her middle aged adoptive mother cleaning her wounds with stinging rubbing alcohol or Brittney hounding her for details on what had happened.

"Please…jus' don't take me home, Simon…"

"Okay." He said.

Her grip on his shirt didn't falter, and she found herself leaning her cheek against one of his shoulders. A tiny insignificant part of her was thankful that he found her, but mostly she was still hitting herself for being seen like this. The brown hued trees, the white picket fences, the gray sidewalk, the knitted brow of Simon's dismal expression were all one undistinguished blur to Jeanette without her glasses. She didn't mind. She wasn't quite ready to see the world for all of its beauty and ugliness again quite yet.

Jeanette couldn't help but wonder just where Simon had acquired the strength to carry someone of similar height and mass. And for the first time in the longest time, she felt a small dose of security as she was cradled against him.

His arms heavy with a battered female, Simon was unable to open the door by himself, so he rang the doorbell to his own house. Even with her blurry vision, she made no mistake about the one who answered the door wearing a long red shirt with a gigantic yellow 'A' on the front.

"God, Simon! Where the world have you-"

His voice stopped. Everything seemed to stop in fact after Simon glared at his shorter sibling and walked brusquely passed him up the stairs. The two left Alvin staring after them, scratching his head in confusion. Simon was well equipped with the common gaze of pure annoyance at the ridiculous, sometimes awful antics Alvin would get himself into. But instead of irritation in his eyes, there was the distinct message of 'say anything and I kill you, I'll explain everything later'.

Why was it so quiet, Jeanette wondered. Why was no one shouting or rushing around to tend to her needs. She could feel each lengthy step Simon took to bring her to the top of the stairs, and then he brought her to the bathroom. He gently laid her back against the wooden cabinets under the sink, and began to run bath water.

Her head lolled to its side as she tried to see what he was doing.

A bath?

Dried blood and mucus covered her face and her body was cut up and bruised.

A hot bath sounded nice.

But even though this was hardly the time to think about something so trivial, getting naked under the same roof as Simon in many senses was not very enticing.

"Can you…get in by yourself?" Simon asked her.

Jeanette shuffled her feet, silently thanking the fact that she could at least feel them again, but she knew that she didn't have enough strength to rise and undress herself. Her heart thumped drastically, willing to go in with her clothes on if she had to. She knew her body from inside her thighs to the softness of her small breasts were littered with obscene residue from events as of late.

She couldn't let him see her like that and have the revolting image of her assaulted skin in his head.

Though an outwardly modest and shy girl she was, the Chipette made a whimsical vow that if he ever were to see her unclothed there would be nothing to diminish the moment. The need to bathe and wash the filth away was strong, but the thought of Simon seeing her black and blue body made her tremble and tense up.

Simon knew that she needed this. She needed to soothe her torn muscles and her skin that he could only imagine how mottled it was. Going in with her clothes on was an option, but the water would only weigh her down as it trapped in the fibers and make her body ache even more. The other option was…

"Jeanette?"

"Mmm…"

"I'm going to undress you and lay you in the tub."

Jeanette's puffy eyes were suddenly able to focus on him and widened. Her head quickly shook.

"No…" She whispered.

"Please, you need this." Simon pressed.

"No…I'm gross. Don't look at me."

Kneeling in front of her he put his hand against her cheek.

"No force on this earth could make me think that. Please, trust me."

He brought his hands down to the hem of her sweater, but waited for permission to go further. Tears began streaming down her face, but she slowly nodded. As gently as possible he lifted the sweater over her head, and it took great control not to gasp at the discolored portions of skin on her stomach.

Now he was the one trembling.

And Jeanette looked so afraid, even more so than when he found her on the dirt patch at school. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. It wasn't _anything_how it was supposed to be. She nearly choked as she saw the flicker of gross astonishment in his eyes as he saw her battered torso. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be.

Simon fought wave after wave of both nausea and amazement as he undressed his best friend. He was sickened by whoever had done this to her. But for some reason it was easy to look beyond the injuries. It was, however, hard to keep his eyes from lingering on her bare skin, or to keep his hands from shaking as he peeled away the last layers of her clothing. There was little to no experience with the female anatomy under his studious belt, there was simply what he learned in school which he always approached scientifically, and the quite exaggerated tales of sexual teenage mirth that his brother Alvin often cooked up. Sweat forming on his brow, he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his button nose and lifted a nude Jeanette into the bathtub full of steaming hot water.

She hissed as the water enveloped her skin. Simon handed her some soap, and said in a shaky voice:

"W-will you be alright on your own for a little while?"

It was faint, but he saw her nod, and she closed her eyes while leaning her dark brown head up against the wall of the bath. Simon exited the bathroom, closed the door and heaved a sigh. Lord knew how long she would be in there. This was a perfect time to collect himself. He sank down on the wall besides the bathroom door, took off his thick round glasses and rubbed his temples. This had to be the most amazing, unbelievable thing that had ever happened to him, even more than when he created a salve that healed mosquito bites in less than an hour.

His relationship with Jeanette was peculiar. Although they shared many interests and both had a thirst for knowledge and academic achievement, they were more different than people realized them to be. The Chipmunks and the Chipettes were simply mirrors of each other, with a few very obvious exceptions. But Simon was quite bold with his comprehension of the world, and took the torment of his jealous peers very differently than he would have in his younger years. He was naturally nonviolent, but he found out the hard way that passiveness didn't stop the bloody noses from coming. When he raised his fists, it was for self defense only. And he made sure that no one saw him like that.

They talked in school as best friends would, but until now Simon was blind to Jeanette's susceptibility. He didn't know the ways of girl world; did they battle each other in gossip or with fists? She talked to him always with her eyes averted to the collar of his shirt or to some object to the side. Her cheeks tinged red whenever he said certain things. When she spoke, her voice was quiet; it floated like a series of mile long clouds. Compliments from him to her made her dark green eyes glimmer before she would look away and mumble a thank you. There had to be an inner strength underneath her smooth pale skin, something grand and wonderful. But it suffered dearly under the stress and abuse of the cursed High School environment that as children they had dreamed of the academic wonderland it supposedly contained.

Who did this to her? Why didn't she tell anyone? How long had this been going on? Why didn't she tell _him_? Was he the only one who knew?

What was she to him?

No matter how hard he tried he could not settle his mind.

"Simon?" A high voice sounded at the top of the stairs.

Placing his glasses back in their respective place, he turned to look at his younger brother Theodore, a familiar concerned expression on his plump face.

"…Is Jeanette okay?"

Simon resisted a scowl. Alvin's mouth was his most pungent quality.

"Don't worry about it, Theodore. She'll be fine."

"Okay…" His brother said, but he didn't leave right away. Instead he stood staring at the bathroom door with an innocent look of contemplation.

"Simon?" He asked again.

"Hmm?"

"Do you think she would mind if I baked her a cake?" Theodore asked, so hopeful.

Simon blinked. And then he chuckled.

"I don't think she would mind at all, Theodore."

"Great!" Theodore cried in excitement, and ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. The clamber of pots and pans began right after he disappeared.

God he loved that kid.

He stood up and knocked on the bathroom door to check on her.

Through the door he heard the faintest of 'come ins'. When he opened the door and saw a shaky but standing Jeanette wrapped in a long thick bath towel, he smiled at her.

"You can stand, thank God."

Jeanette's lips turned upward ever so slightly, but she quickly looked down and strings of her wet brown hair stuck to her cheeks.

"C'mon, let's go get you some clothes that aren't torn." Simon said.

He took her firmly by the arm and helped her stay stable as they walked down the hall to the room he and his brothers shared, but not before listening intently and making sure that all the members of his family were downstairs. He didn't want her to have to expose herself to him again if they could help it. Not to mention helping a naked girl walk down to his room would be a pretty tough thing to explain to both his brothers and Dave.

Jeanette clung to him, going back and forth between wishing that this never happened and being glad that it did. Simon dug through his drawer and pulled out a baggy blue shirt and sweats to match. They were his clothes that he slept in, but he would let her have them. The clothes she initially wore fit her gender, but were shredded and dirty. He handed them to her then turned around to let her dress. Now that she was able bodied it was out of the question to see her unclothed again, at least in his mind.

"Simon…"

Her voice.

Such a quiet melodious voice.

And it was the first purely coherent thing she'd said since he found her. The hot bathwater probably got the blood rushing back to her head again.

"I'm done." She said. "You can look now."

Even in baggy sleep clothes she still looked gorgeous. He liked this look on her better; quiet and calm and collected, as opposed to a scared trembling girl curled up in a fetal position and covered in dirt and tears. Using her common sense in judging which bed was his, she sat on the bed with the blue covers and stared at her hands that folded themselves in her lap.

"So…" Simon said somberly. "Do you…um, want to talk about it?"

He needed answers when he could still get them, while Jeanette appeared to be secure.

Or at least as secure as one in her position can be.

Jeanette sighed deeply. Tears threatened to spill again, but this time she blinked them back. Her walls were trying to re-establish themselves, but she knew they could no longer protect her. What else could she hide from Simon now?

"They…they caught me after school, asked for my money and…"

A shuddery breath escaped her lips.

"…they hit me."

"Who's 'they'" Simon asked, his mouth a line as grim as his voice.

"It doesn't matter." Jeanette told him.

Simon fumed. His skin felt hot like a furnace. But on the surface he showed nothing. He hoped his palms wouldn't split from his fingernails pressing into them. She had to be understating her situation; what they did to her was more than hitting, it was a thrashing only worthy of a common criminal. Jeanette seemed to love people. She had a knack for having compassion for nearly everyone she met. Was this what was keeping her from standing up to her attackers, even after they beat her to a bloody pulp?

Later, he would be glad that she didn't tell him who they were, or he would have found them and snapped. Even calm, level headed Simon had a breaking point. But right now he was furious that she wouldn't give him their names.

He sat next to her, staring strait at her with his steel blue eyes.

"Listen to me, Jeanette."

She glanced at him.

"You are going to go home tonight, and tell everyone what happened."

She gulped noisily.

"You are going to tell Brittney, Eleanor, Miss Miller, everyone. When you go back to school, you are going to tell all of your teachers. The people in your classes."

Simon swallowed the lump in his throat, but went on.

"Everyone, and I mean_ everyone _will know what happened to you."

Jeanette still wouldn't look at him.

"Look at me." He pressed.

She did. And her eyes were brimming with tears. She was thankful for these tears, although they appeared to be the same as the ones brought on by her pain. These tears were out of joy that someone cared about her crass plight. Especially when she thought no one would. So she kept it inside and saved the trouble of telling the people who didn't want to hear it.

"Do you promise me that you'll do that?" He asked her. It was hard to resist the intensity in his resolute gaze. Jeanette nodded quickly.

She would've done anything for him before. But now it no longer felt freakish.

Now it felt right.

"Thank you." She said.

"You're welcome."

"No…really, thank you."

"And I said you're welcome. You're my best friend; would you expect anything less from me?" Simon said.

Yes. She would have. As yet another girl in the world questioning her worth, she expected much less from him; even though she cherished him so much.

"I'm sorry, too."

"What on earth for, Jeanette?" Simon said almost exasperatedly.

"For making you see me like that. I know you must think I'm disgusting."

Goodness.

Strangely enough, amidst the chance of conversing with Jeanette on a somewhat normal level, he had forgotten that he had seen her completely bare.

"I could never think that."

As soon as the words slipped from his mouth, he figured that she wouldn't believe him.

He never knew that she endured so much, from others and herself. Try harder, work harder, get better grades. Be nice to everyone, please your family, do your chores. Get into a nice college, become successful. No doubt that she did and would do these things. No doubt that she was loved by many, including him. It was still an unsolved mystery for him to this day why she thought she was doing anything less.

She wanted to say something to him to convey her feelings, her strong feelings that she wanted to radiate from her mass. But Jeanette had already caused too much stress on her friend today.

She would tell him another day.

On a day after she realized what she was made of.

So instead, she hugged him. Hard.

And he didn't hesitate to hug her back.

Theodore baked his cake of course, and later Jeanette sampled the culinary gift lightly so as not to upset her rather malnourished stomach. She gave the boy a thumbs up on his cooking and a light kiss on his forehead. She even smiled slightly as Alvin made a comment about the clothing that Simon had given her, whereas Simon glared at his brother once more for his conduct. They had each given her something that day that gave her the hope to go on and fulfill the promise she had made. Simon tried to convince her time and time again that evening that she didn't deserve to be treated like she had been, and hopefully it would start to sink in.

Jeanette went home that night with her torn clothes slung on her back, her ruddy sneakers on her feet, and a soft expression as she left Simon's house, which to this day is an epitome to her of self healing. She walked down the street to her own house, looking back at the lit windows of the Seville household.

He believed in her.

Enough for the both of them.

Hopefully that would mend more than just the wounds on her flesh.


End file.
